I would like to report an issue related to symbolic links (ln -s) on Linux.
Environment
- FreeFileSync version: 14.7 (x86-64)
- Operating system: Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS
- Filesystem: ext4 (both source and target)
- Sync type: Standard mirror / two-way (issue occurs in both)
Problem description
Files that are generated or referenced via symbolic links are not synced correctly by FreeFileSync.
In my case, some files are missing in the target directory after synchronization. This leads to silent data loss, because the sync operation completes without errors, but the resulting file set is incomplete.
Steps to reproduce
1. Create a directory structure:
mkdir source target
echo "test" > source/original.txt
ln -s original.txt source/link.txt
source/
target/
target/
FreeFileSync should:
- Either correctly sync the symbolic link (as a symlink), or
- Correctly sync the target file content the symlink points to (depending on settings),
- But in any case, no files should be missing silently.
Actual behavior
- Files related to symbolic links are not synced correctly
- Some expected files are missing in the target directory
- No error or warning is reported during synchronization
Impact
This is potentially dangerous in backup or mirror workflows, because:
- Sync completes successfully
- Users may assume data is fully backed up
- Files created via or referenced by symlinks are actually missing
Additional notes
- The issue occurs consistently on my system
- I am using the default symlink handling settings
- Please let me know if additional logs or test cases would help
Thank you very much for maintaining FreeFileSync and for looking into this issue.
Best regards,
Qilin
